A judge on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo and said he should spend up to 18 months in jail while prosecutors investigate him for allegedly taking US$20 million in bribes from Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA.
Peruvian Judge Richard Concepcion said evidence uncovered so far in a graft probe, including testimony from an Odebrecht executive and bank records, warranted putting Toledo in “preventive prison” while charges of influence peddling and money laundering were prepared.
In issuing an arrest warrant, Concepcion said Toledo appeared to have used the “high office of the presidency” to “make an illegal pact” to sell off a highway project that promised to integrate the region.
Photo: AP
Toledo, who rose to power denouncing the corruption of his predecessor, has repeatedly denied taking bribes from Odebrecht.
The former president is believed to be abroad. He was in Paris for a meeting earlier in the week and is a visiting academic at Stanford University in California.
If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, lead prosecutor Hamilton Castro said.
Toledo “laughed at Peruvian society, he laughed at the expectations Peruvian society had for ... clean public work projects,” Castro told the court hearing into the prosecutor’s request for “preventive prison” for Toledo.
Toledo’s attorney, Heriberto Benitez, accused the judge of seeking “vengeance” and said he would appeal against the ruling.
“He can’t come back... I wouldn’t recommend it,” Benitez told reporters. “With judges like this, careful.”
The government of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who served as Toledo’s finance minister and prime minister a decade ago when the contracts were awarded, said that it would offer a reward for information leading to Toledo’s capture if he did not turn himself in.
Odebrecht has been at the center of a growing graft scandal in Latin America since admitting to doling out hundreds of millions of US dollars in bribes from Peru to Panama.
The revelation, made in US courts in December, threatens to implicate presidents and former presidents who once promoted the hydroelectric plants, highways and irrigation canals that Odebrecht has built in the past two decades.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was